End-of-Quest ruminations

I’m glad I did this.  Over the past three months or so, it was a fun set of day trips to take in my new car, and I certainly now know where I might want to charge up as I travel around my home state.  Next month, in April, I plan to do my first ‘serious’ road trip, driving 6200 miles round-trip from NH to Las Vegas, with stops in Colorado (both legs) to visit family.  It will be interesting to see how the robust supercharging network along the interstate differs from the NH supercharging stations.  My guess is that I will not encounter many 'resort’ type supercharging stations (like in Lincoln and Thornton), and that in general there will be more food options, but we will have to see.  I’m also expecting to encounter busier stations, perhaps even needing to wait for a charger, or certainly being forced to share a charge at a 150kW charger.

I have to hand it to Tesla, for having the vision to build this robust supercharging network in a short amount of time.  15 years ago, there were no Tesla supercharging stations.  The stations are nothing short of genius.  The chargers themselves are cool looking, futuristic, and break away from the ‘gas station’ model in so many ways.  No people are needed to ‘run’ the stations.  No payment mechanism is needed…the station recognizes your Tesla, and charges your account.  No readouts at the ‘pump’…all that info is available, but in your car, not displayed on the charger.  The charging is FAST, my trip out west will have mostly 20-30 minute charging times.  And most brilliant of all is the idea that this robust supercharger network enables Teslas to be viable vehicles to take on road trips…without the superchargers, this car would only be useful for day trips close to home.   As it stands, with the many hundreds of supercharger stations, a Tesla owner can have confidence to head out almost anywhere in the continental US without even thinking about where they will need to charge up…they can plug the destination in the trip planner, and the Tesla recommends where to stop.  (And unlike other EVs, the Tesla route planning logic is excellent, with generally accurate predictions as to how far you can make it given your current state of charge.)